Keep Leaving
by phlesh
Summary: Beca recounts the friendship she's had with Chloe growing up, and the struggles that come with it. Rated M for later language, themes, and sexual references.
1. Chapter 1

**Just spitballing while I'm stuck on Obvious  
**

* * *

ser-en-dip-i-ty

the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

* * *

This is a story about being better.

I don't think it ends happily. I don't think I know how it ends at all.

My therapist told me that maybe, I can help myself figure it out if I tell someone. It's hard to do. It's hard because there's so much to tell, that I never know where or how to begin to tell it. People don't really understand. Not that I blame them, I really don't, because I don't understand either.

But I'm going to try to tell it how it is. How I know it. The version where I'm sure I'll paint you as the bad guy. Maybe it's you, or maybe it's me, but I'm more certain that it's the both of us together. I'll let someone else decide.

I'll start with the basics.

We met before kindergarten. By some chance when our subdivision was evacuated during the flood, the year we were four years old. When staying at the hotel, our families met in the elevator, and later my mom will tell me that she was so unbelievably grateful that there was another child my age that she could send me off to play with. One of my sister's, or Chloe's grandmother would watch us in the pool or out on the playground for the four days we spent in that downtown hotel.

And then Chloe was gone and forgotten as summer resumed.

At the time, I had no idea, never would have even had the ability to comprehend the impact that the redhaired little girl a few blocks away would have on me in the future.

* * *

Eventually, autumn came kindergarten year, I was enrolled and distantly, I recognized the redhaired girl I spent time with previously. That made us friends by default. However, in an environment that provided more children, it became increasingly evident that we didn't have a lot in common, but it was too early on for things like that to be of any concern. Chloe liked dress-up, and coloring. I liked to play with the hand puppets, especially the dinosaurs, and I liked to play in the sandbox.

The sandbox was somewhere Chloe liked as well. She became a different kind of happy in the sandbox; even if someone asked her what her favorite activity was in kindergarten; she'd say dress-up, but her eyes told a different story. Chloe liked to build. And then, when she was done, she liked to let me knock down her castle, and then she could start something new.

If anyone asked _me_ , _that_ was Chloe's favorite spot.

But we were different. She was soft-spoken, the picture-perfect example of the little girl some mother's- like my own- would dream about. Big blue eyes and wild red hair, dresses and a contagious laugh. I was tomboyish; too small for my age, and uncomfortable in the clothes my mother would pick out for me. Loud, and too keen, yet shy. Opposites.

Our friendship remained intact, but there were other children that eventually I gravitated towards.

Chloe was always in my background, though. With the occasional playdate, and an invite to every birthday party.

As time went on, our differences became more drastic. The first, and most prominent being our social standing. Chloe became well-liked, and it was known that she was popular, even as a young child. Pretty and charismatic, that's the perfect recipe. I laid low. I had music and books.

Once, in fifth grade, I heard a crying in the bathroom. It was at the end of lunch hour, and I had rushed to try to get in before the bell rang. But with one hand pressed into the green door, opening just a crack; I stalled when I heard the sniffling. I'd never been one to handle emotions well, not even my own- for whatever reason, my capabilities for that part of interaction were botched somewhere along the way. I won't get into that part right now.

I'm not sure how I knew, but it sounded like Chloe. Despite the fact that there was no sound, other than the nonstop sniffling. And _that_ was enough to make me push through my own personal sense of awkwardness, so I went forwards anyway, with caution. And my instinct was right. Chloe Beale, alone in the washroom across from Mrs. Fraser's classroom, leaning into the door of the far stall with her little arms crossed over her chest. Blue eyes dart up to meet mine as I enter, and I'm distinctly surprised by the way she doesn't try to hide- not in any way- when I see her. Unashamed of her show of emotion, she simply sniffs sharply once again as she takes in my presence.

"What's wrong?" I ask her, after a moments reluctance. Another reason why we're opposites. I would have swiped away my tears and told the person intruding on me to go away.

Chloe wipes the tear running down her cheek haughtily with the back of her hand. And then she huffs, dropping her hands away from the emblazoned picture of Justin Timberlake on her shirt and clenches her jaw. "CJ likes Trista." It's muttered. "Not me."

And I'm thrown.

I remember thinking that I _knew_ I was easily offended, and often irritable, and occasionally I would get upset about irrational things. But one thing I didn't understand was crying about a boy.

Especially one as ugly as CJ.

Our friendship drifted apart after that. Distant, barely present, but nothing ever happened to make it break apart. I wasn't particularly bothered by it. I had other friends; Fat Amy, Jessica, Cynthia Rose. These were the friends I blossomed into middle school with. There was more history that happened in those years before, but right now, I won't worry about all of that. Little would I know that Chloe would fall towards our group, and so much like that first time we met- all those years ago- I had no idea just how much it would affect me.

It only gets more complicated from here.


	2. Chapter 2

**Trying to make angsty AND complex versions of these characters, while also attempting to remember what it feels like to be thirteen and stupid. Thank you for the response this has gotten already, very cool! So happy whenever people want to join me in an adventure, and this one is just really experimental.**

* * *

I've never stood out. Which is fine. But I've never really been able to fit in, either. To seamlessly blend in, fall into the steady, slow moving river that was grade school.

I've always been too small. Puberty was starting to help with that, but at any given time; I'd usually look two years younger than the age I really was. Seventh grade was the long middle of my awkward stage; not much of a growth spurt, but I was just starting to learn how to make my cover-up look less like an orange layer of cheese on top of my skin (a remark a classmate of mine had made). I was _just_ starting to experiment with eye makeup, back then. I was also just starting to experiment with music mixing, when boys in my class started to blast bad dubstep on free periods, and I decided I wanted to make something _way_ better than that blender-sounding garbage.

* * *

" _Coconut-Head_!" It's a reference. Not a name they came up with on their own. Ashley Whatsherlastname and Stephanie Also-Whatsherlastname had taken a liking to the name for me, because I was small, like _Coconut-Head_ from that one TV show I didn't watch. But the two of them came over, an abundance of body odor and greasy hair, the epitome of pubescence; to give me a rough noogie at the top of my head. Both of them. _At the same time_. I squirmed out from under them; the only advantage to my small stature, with a throbbing scalp and hair mussed around, glaring indignantly. They were _laughing_. I remember the fury that had stoked into my body, dripping gasoline into my blood.

"Are you being bullied?"

That one is my mother.

I'd also acquired an appreciation for video games. Specifically, first-person shooter games like Call of Duty, to which my mother thought was strange, given that I was a girl. And _no_ , it wasn't because I was being bullied. Because I _wasn_ ' _t_ ; as far as I was concerned. Ashley and Stephanie were the closest things, but I thought the two of them were idiots, so I didn't really think it was bullying. It's also not like it happened every day.

So, whenever my mother would ask; I'd scowl and say no, and I meant it. My bullies were at home. My bullies _were_ my mother, my sister before me, and myself.

There's an age gap between my sisters and I. The eldest- Kiera- is nine years older than me. And she's a genius, and non-confrontational. She's rational and collected, wears glasses and while she lived at home, she was the peacemaker. She moved out on the highest scholarship grants our highschool offered when I was at the end of fifth grade. My second sister, Alicia, is six years older than me. She's beautiful- my grandma had once- to my mother and father's horror- called Kiera " _the smart one_ " and Alicia " _the pretty one_ " to their face. She skipped over me. Alicia, she's still smart, she graduated with a gold chord. But she's snappy, hot-blooded, and mean. I suppose I can be the same way. But as a child, she was my bully. And her teenage years were not easy.

She resorted to making me cry easily. She'd yell. Call me stupid when I forgot to do something. Get on my case for being too loud. The age difference kept a wedge between us.

There's a birthday party, at a point in time I can't pinpoint; maybe, again, it was fifth grade- all I know is that it was at the peak of her years as a monster. The clock was striking two in the morning, and my group of friends had gathered in the basement recreational room; next door to my sister's bedroom. I had begged two girls to stop talking so loudly, explaining that it was late and I hadn't wanted to wake up my sister. But they weren't listening, they were continuing to talk and laugh without making an effort to quiet, and the stress had eaten me to the point of tears.

"Please be quiet, I just want to go to bed."

"Why are you crying?"

"Don't be a _spaz_ ,"

"Hey," That's Chloe. Sharp, commanding, but spoke just above a whisper. "Shut up. She asked to go to bed." In the dark, I can see her scowl in the direction of the two girls, but scoot her way across to couch until she's behind me. "Lay down." It's directed only at me. So terribly happy that someone else had gotten on my side, I don't hesitate, settling myself backwards on the couch. Chloe gives me some room, but when my head touches the pillow, she brings her hand down, playing with the hair at the top of my head. The other girls don't stop talking, but it's a whisper now.

It takes me a while to sleep; I'm still worked up, and I'm too busy wondering what and why Chloe is doing what she's doing. I chalk it up to her instincts.

She has an age gap between her siblings, too. Nine years older than her sister, Isabelle. Twelve years older than her brother, Wyatt. Chloe's mother had her when she was sixteen, and when her next kids were born, Chloe became more of a free babysitter than a child to the woman. No one's got it perfect.

So when seventh grade came, Kiera had been moved out for some years, and Alicia had just graduated. Chloe had a newborn brother and a three-year-old sister. That's the year I met Stacie, and I'm glad that it wasn't any later than that. Stacie was still in her awkward stage as well; one so deep and so gnarled that no one, I don't think, expected what was to come. So when she moved to our Barden middle school, my friend Jessica, who liked to pick up strays, remained curious and empathetic when there was a gangly, oily girl with glasses sitting by herself in the cafeteria; she saw nothing different than a cat without a home.

"This is Stacie," She introduces us one day at lunch. And by ' _us_ ', I mean Fat Amy, Cynthia Rose, and myself. But we all already know who she is, because she's in our class. There's a chorus of greetings in return, and Fat Amy sends a questioning look my way from the corner of her eye. Stacie waves stiffly.

"Do you guys want to come over this weekend?" She asks, after a moment. We say yes. We go to Stacie's house on the weekend. 

* * *

"Who's this Stacie?" Disdain paints my mother's voice as she drives following the directions that Stacie had given me.

"She just moved here." I mumble in return.

"Who's all going?"

"Just us," This is the third time she's asked since I had requested permission to go earlier in the week. "Me, Jessica, Fat Amy, and Cynthia Rose."

"No Chloe?" She sounds upset. She's always liked Chloe. One time, she told me Chloe was her favorite of my friends, which I thought was weird, considering Chloe had a considerably smaller part in my life at that point. I hadn't even hung out with her outside of school in, probably, a year.

"No," I say. "Chloe's not really my friend."

"What?" She takes a right on the road, pulling into a subdivision. "Why do you say that?"

"I just mean, we don't really hang out is all. She has other friends." The _'cool'_ kids.

Marcia doesn't really say anything else about it. She continues to drive until we reach Stacie's house, and bids me goodbye. I grab my bag from the backseat, and am greeted by Stacie's mother; a happy, friendly, but odd woman. Jessica and Cynthia Rose are already there, and when I arrive, Stacie gives me a tour, and introduces me to her older sister, but says nothing about her father.

We spend the night on the trampoline and down at the river, and it's clear, after the weekend, that Stacie is our friend. Later that year, she helps us all make a Facebook page, and we spend many weekends there. Grade seven ends, and it's summer. 

* * *

"I should get a job." Stacie sighs; we're laying in the vacant field of the highschool- all of us- the soccer ball abandoned a few feet away. Summer hangs hot and heavy around us, pressing us into the grass.

"I was thinking that, too." Jessica agrees.

"I might wait another year." I could use the money, but I don't want the responsibility just yet.

I walk home a bit later, stepping onto my yard and halting when I hear the shouts. Muffled behind closed doors. Mom and Dad are fighting again. Screaming. Alicia's car isn't there- it hasn't been a lot, lately- and suddenly, the idea of being alone with them in a house is nauseating. Not when the walls and insulation are practically still vibrating with the negative energy. I reconsider whether or not I should get a job; if getting one means I won't have to spend as much time in the house.

Sighing, I back off the lawn, taking a seat against the siding on the far side of the garage, so that neither of them had the possibility of glancing at me out of the window and stopping the argument. It was worse when that happened. The tension was different. Things won't ever be _that_ resolved, but with it like that, it just felt somehow worse. I wait. Maybe twenty minutes, before I go in through the back door, pour myself some orange juice from in the fridge, and retreat to my bedroom. Directly adjacent from my parents; the door is shut, but I know only one parent is in there. Probably my mother.

I close my door, too. I look at music online. I go on Facebook. Chloe Beale has sent me a friend request. She has over two hundred friends, already; I have just over sixty. I spend some time on her page; looking at stickers she's used to decorate it, looking at her profile pictures. I hear the blimp that indicates that I have a message; I expect it to be from Stacie or Fat Amy, but I'm surprised to find it's not.

 **Chloe Beale:**  
 _hey :)_

I feel guilty, suddenly, for some reason; like she knew I was on her page.

 **Rebeca Mitchell:**  
 _oh hey_

 **Chloe Beale:**  
 _are u busy?_

 **Rebeca Mitchell:**  
 _no, what's up?_

 **Chloe Beale:**  
 _how has ur summer been? :p_

 **Rebeca Mitchell:**  
 _its been good. you?_

 **Chloe Beale:**  
 _yeah its been good :)_  
 _who is ur friend? the girl who moved here_

 **Rebeca Mitchell:**  
 _stacie?_

 **Chloe Beale:**  
 _oh yea! :D_

 **Rebeca Mitchell:**  
 _why?_

 **Chloe Beale:**  
 _jw. we should all hangout :p_

I'm instantly suspicious. Not because I know Chloe's intentions are bad- they're not- but because Chloe's interests tend to usually only concern herself. And I can't think of why Chloe would suddenly have interest in Stacie, when neither her or her friends had really looked in the girl's direction at all last year. Selfishly-I know, on my part- I'm worried that if she would hangout with them, Stacie would like Chloe better than she would all of us, and her allegiance to friendships would change. It wasn't a completely paranoid thing to think. People _always_ liked Chloe better. Sometimes, I wonder if the few of us only became friends because we weren't good enough to be associated with the group that included Chloe. Aubrey, and Bumper. Donald. _Cool_ kids.

 **Rebeca Mitchell:**  
 _yeah maybe_

 **Chloe Beale:**  
 _I haven't seen u in a while :p_

 **Rebeca Mitchell:**  
 _i know :/_

That's as far as that conversation goes. Chloe reads it, but never replies. Marcia comes into my room suddenly, and I spin around on my desk chair. "Your _father_ ," She mutters, before laughing humorlessly to herself and throwing her hands up at her side helplessly. "that's it, I can't do it anymore." It's a line I hear a lot. "We're getting a divorce. I don't care this time." _Also_ two lines I hear a lot, and they usually accompany that first one. "He always thinks he's right, he's such an asshole! He can go hang around with Ian," That's his friend who moved two doors down about a year ago, who my mother hates passionately for some unknown reason. Despite the fact that Ian had shown nothing but kindness towards the family. "if he really wants to. You know," Such as getting groceries for us- he drives a supply truck- like boxes of ice cream or eggs or milk whenever we need it, "sometimes I think he's _gay_." She nearly gags over the last word. "So, that's it, I've had it. Do you know what he said to me? He said that Alicia doesn't look like you or Kiera- and if he is implying that _disgusting_ ,"

* * *

They don't get a divorce though. Eighth grade starts up, and I enter school with a stronger group of friends than ever. I get my first period right before school starts, my acne only gets worse, and the only one of us who makes any positive progress as far as the awkward stage goes is Stacie. People actually _want_ to talk to her now, but she's not particularly interested. "Well, they wouldn't talk to me when I looked like a troll," Stacie scoffs- she still hasn't gotten braces, but that's her next improvement- "so that just goes to show what they're like. I don't care about them."

"Good for you," I tell her; selfishly reveling in the way she hasn't decided to ditch us because of her good looks now. We're standing at our lockers after school. I'm close enough to walk, but Stacie and all of my other friends have buses to catch. We wave goodbye and I'm about to dig into my bag for the expensive pair of headphones I'd gotten last Christmas, when I'm interrupted.

"Hey, Rebeca?"

I'm a bit thrown; my immediate group of friends had taken to calling me just Beca, so when I hear my full name spoken by anyone other than my parents or a teacher, I'm a little askew. Especially when that person is Chloe, standing, staring sheepishly at me.

"Oh," I scuff my feet. It's been a while since we spoke, just the two of us, that wasn't over IM. "Hi, Chloe."

"Hi." She grins. "Do you want to walk home together?"

I blink. "We live a couple blocks away from one another." I say it like she doesn't already know, and feel stupid for it. Chloe's grin just grows.

"Well, yeah, but," She must have gotten braces during the summer. "We can walk home for a little while."

Despite the fact that I'd been kind of looking forward to listening to music, I say yes, because I don't want to be rude. We'd been sort of friends since kindergarten, after all. "How have you been?" I hedge, after a bit of silent distance covered by the two of us.

Chloe glances over at me, giving a quizzical kind of look. Her hair is curled, and there's a pimple on her chin. She hasn't got the hang of her mascara yet; it's clumped together too much. But it's still a far improvement on me. My hair fell flat, and there was a break out along my forehead and cheeks, and though I'd gotten better at cover-up, it was still all there. And at this point, I was _far_ too bold with my eyeliner. "I've been fine." Chloe finally replies, looking away with a shrug. "Aubrey and them, they won't really talk to me."

 _Trouble in paradise_ , I think. "Oh?"

"Yeah, whatever, it's stupid."

I don't push. I don't really care to push, because I'm not involved, and I have the inkling feeling that the only reason the girl is walking with me now is because she has no one else to talk to now, if she's in the rough. And Chloe doesn't elaborate, either. The two of us just continue walking; shoes scuffing against the sidewalk, sending the occasional pebble skittering.

It's so very bizarre to think about how people grow apart. Together, and apart. And sometimes together again. I remember thinking about, how Chloe, at one point, was so much closer to me than the girl now.

"Oh!" She cries, and it startles me to a halt. Chloe throws her arm out, pointing towards a slithering silhouette on the road. " _Look_ , a snake!" She bursts forward, backpack thumping against her, following the path the little gardener snake had taken into the bushes on the opposite side of the road. I grimace, but follow. Chloe squats down near a bush, leering in, but glancing at me momentarily as I approach. "Think we can catch it?"

Frowning, I ask. "Why do you want it?"

"It's a snake." Chloe says it as if, _duh_ , it's a pot of gold and why _shouldn_ ' _t_ she want it? "I love snakes. _There_!" She points towards the reptile moving along the fence-line. "Quick, let's get it!"

Chloe slips her backpack hastily off of her shoulders and leaves it there, hurrying forwards to follow the creature. "Um," I say. " _Yeah_ , you can do that."

Chloe stops, just for a moment, to throw a wry look at me over her shoulder, a smirk playing against her lips. "Scared?" Before she continues to stalk the poor thing.

Indignant, a follow her a few steps. "I just don't understand the need for a snake." Chloe steps in the snakes path, and Beca sees it halt for a moment. Chloe uses that to pounce, gripping the snake carefully behind it's head and gently placing it in her free hand; still pressing her thumb and forefinger in the appropriate spot. " _Ew_ , _Chloe_!"

"Look at him!" She cooes. "He's so cute." She tries to extend the small snake towards me, but I shake my head, taking a step backwards.

" _Ew_. It could have disease, dude."

Chloe scoffs. "Oh, he's fine." She uses a free finger to stroke his scales. I snort.

"You like snakes?"

"I _love_ snakes." She answers without missing a beat. It's odd to me. Kind of like the sandbox, when I think about it. To have such a girl who looks like she'd scream at snakes, or turn her nose up when it came to playing in the mud- instead go chasing down animals and sit in the dirt. And she's beaming. Smiling brighter than I'd seen her smile at school.

"Well, what are you going to do with it now?"

Her smile falls into a thoughtful line. "I want to keep him." For the first time since she's lifted the snake from the ground, blue eyes dart up to meet mine earnestly. "But I'll let him go. He's a wild thing, not mine to keep." I hum, and she tries offering him up to me once more. "You're sure you don't want to pet him?"

"No thanks," I shake my head again, eyeing the little snake uncertainly. He's harmless. I know that. But it still unsettles me.

"You're no fun," Chloe tuts, settling back down to the ground again and preparing to set the snake back into the grass.

"Just not into snakes."

"So," Chloe settles onto the dirt and dying grass on the side of the road again, resting the back of the hand carrying most of the snake against the dirt, and carefully guiding the other still holding the creature behind it's head into the shrubbery. "You _are_ scared."

"No."

"Then touch him."

" _No_."

Chloe snorts once more, letting the little thing loose and stepping back from it, as it takes off into the wild again. She was right. It's a wild thing. Not a pet. I should have thought more carefully about those words, and about how they may apply to me, as well. " _Scaredy-pants_."

I don't indulge her, because the way she's looking at me, in that moment, says it all. Like she _wants_ to be indulged. Wants me to continue arguing. Like I'm scared and she knows it; and maybe she's right, but I'm the kind of person who tries to hold on to my pride. We hold the look for a moment. Locking eyes- she's squinting slightly against the sun as she looks at me, and the sunlight turns the color of her eyes iridescent, almost. Like swimming in the ocean of the Caribbean. Blue, clear as crystal.

I feel myself begin to crack. _Smile_. The left side of my mouth pulling upwards in a smirk I can't contain, and she mimics the look. Silently, we hold the argument for as long as we can, before I look away and continue walking. But not without looking back. She follows.

Chloe Beale, I reason, is still my friend after all. She has never done anything to me in particular. We just fell off of each other's grid for a while.


End file.
